Public Relations Society Of America Research Articles

Perceptions of formal career achievements in public relations by students, professionals, and employers: Certificate, accreditation, and College of Fellows

Various professional organizations in the public relations field have created opportunities for formal professional achievement. Among participating professional organizations, there is the Certificate in Principles of Public Relations for students near graduation time, and professionals may pursue Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) or Accreditation in Public Relations + Military Communication (APR+M). For advanced professionals, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) offers the College of Fellows to its members. However, perceptions of and participation in these achievement opportunities are varied. This study uses the lens of the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) to explore why people do or do not seek to attain these professional milestones. Mean responses on intrinsic social cognitive response variables (confidence, self-efficacy, goal-setting) did not show a significant relationship to motivation, but the extrinsic value expectation was significant. In addition, awareness and perception of these professional achievements among human resources and hiring managers were studied. Results show students and professionals who have earned career achievements have higher mean responses on social cognitive responses than those who do not. Hiring managers value professional development indicators as positive to have but not necessary if candidates have proven experience. Qualitative responses further indicated many respondents were not familiar with the Certificate in Principles of Public Relations, APR, or College of Fellows. Those who had earned these achievements were generally positive. Few students, professionals, or educators reported reaping no benefit once achieved. Those who chose not to pursue or who provided negative responses cited lack of necessity, lacks value, requires too much (e.g. time, money), or process as reasons why.

Moral Orientations and Traits of Public Relations Exemplars

ABSTRACT This moral psychology study surveys the College of Fellows of the Public Relations Society of America to examine morally relevant features and motivations. Using the Moral Foundations Theory assessment in conjunction with other moral psychology measures, the results (n = 59) affirm the exemplar status of Fellows, reflected in Global Character Strengths, personality traits and ethical ideology. Fellows reject relativism and rate Honesty and Fairness among their top Character Strengths, reflecting key ethical norms for public relations practice. Results also document links regarding empathy, justice and harm, reflecting the moral intuitionist orientations found to be common among populations in Western developed countries. Overall, the emerging moral psychology profile of PR exemplars embodies the spirit and core meta-ethical elements of both an ethic of care and neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics.

Crossing the Threshold of General Public Relations Practices: Assessing Malaysia’s Experience in the First Quarter of the Millennium

Public Relations (PR) is nothing new to the present day global community. In fact, mankind had exercised PR since the day they first decided to live together. Since then, an essential beacon of wisdom in the history of mankind was planted. The birth of the modern PR began in 1948 when the Public Relations Society of America and the Institute of Public Relations in Britain were founded. Today, the influence of this communication field has engulfed almost all professions of global organizations. Majority of these organizations apply the PR principles and practices into their organizational structures. This paper begins with the historical backgrounds of the international PR culture, studies, and definitions. From there, the discussion penetrates deeper into the realm of the Malaysian PR culture. This analysis deals with many aspects of the PR, i.e. professional ethics, social and legal contracts, aimed at giving a considerably critical understanding of the Malaysian PR culture, which differs in definitions and practices. At the end of this paper, readers are presented with an overview of contemporary threats and challenges facing the field. This concept paper deals with the past, the present, and the future uncertainties of the PR field. Whether we are aware or not, PR today has been tremendously used for managing social stress in view of globalization. Yet, the forces of tolerance and brotherhood grant the country confidence in facing future challenges and threats. Indeed, the world of global PR is changing inconsiderately. Come what may, Malaysian has chosen to toughen up for a journey of her own in the wake of PR uncertainties.

Liza Gashi’s Emphasis on Ethics Within the Kosovo Government

This article describes ethical dimensions within the work of Ms. Liza Gashi, Deputy Minister of the Kosovo Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora. This includes a specific focus on nation branding and issues having to do with diaspora diplomacy. The Public Relations Society of America’s Public Relations Code of Ethics and Sherry Baker and David Martinson’s T.A.R.E.S. framework are two examples of such ethical aspects. It emphasizes being truthful, authentic, respectful, equitable, and socially responsible. Her functioning within the larger context of the foundations for the Republic of Kosovo and its 2008 declaration of independence is described. The content analysis methodology corresponds with the clarity of results.

Liza Gashi’S emphasis on ethics within the Kosovogovernment

This article describes ethical dimensions within the work of Ms. Liza Gashi, Deputy Minister of the Kosovo Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora. This includes a specific focus on nation branding and issues having to do with diaspora diplomacy. The Public Relations Society of America’s Public Relations Code of Ethics and Baker and David (1) T.A.R.E.S. framework are two examples of such ethical aspects. It emphasizes being truthful, authentic, respectful, equitable, and socially responsible. Her functioning within the larger context of the foundations for the Republic of Kosovo and its 2008 declaration of independence is described. The content analysis methodology corresponds with the clarity of results.

Professional Values and Standards of PR Industry in Pakistan: A Comparison with International Practices

This article analyses the status of professional practice in the public relations industry in Pakistan in terms of the application of professional values. The adoption of professional values by public relations practitioners is explored by interviewing public relations practitioners. The conceptions of professional values have been taken from the Public Relations Society of America's code of professional standards. Ten qualitative interviews were conducted with practitioners from the government sector. The results explained the conditions of the public relations landscape in Pakistan in terms of professional practice and maturity. The applications of professional values are less in practice due to factors including lack of professional organization in PR, lessre cognition of PR apparatus by the management, less professional training opportunities, weak research infrastructure in PR departments,and professional attitude of the practitioners while performing day today obligations.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Stakeholder Engagement: A Content Analysis of PRSA Silver Anvil Award-Winning CSR Campaigns

Stakeholder engagement has been an important research topic across many disciplines. In this study, we examined the concept of stakeholder engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and identified how organizations engage stakeholders in their CSR communication by analyzing successful CSR programs. Two coders conducted a content analysis of 146 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Silver Anvil Award-winning CSR campaigns implemented during the past ten years. The results show that many organizations have engaged stakeholders in their CSR programs in various ways to increase awareness about social issues, change stakeholder behavior, and create favorable attitudes toward the organizations. As for CSR communication strategies, stakeholder response strategies were frequently observed, which is relevant to the two-way asymmetric communication model. Many organizations receive feedback from their stakeholders and demonstrate how they integrate their stakeholders’ concerns. The result also shows that social media is widely used for digital engagement. However, despite its potential to become an interactive, dialogic space, response strategy is used more often than involvement strategy. Although co-creating a CSR strategy with stakeholders and making a shared decision (i.e., stakeholder involvement strategy) is ideal for building a mutually beneficial relationship between an organization and its stakeholders, few organizations have employed this strategy. This study also found that partnership is a common stakeholder engagement strategy in CSR communication. Many organizations have used third-party endorsement and engaged nonprofits, opinion leaders, and social media influencers in their CSR communication.

In defense of sugar: a critical analysis of rhetorical strategies used in The Sugar Association\u2019s award-winning 1976 public relations campaign

BackgroundIn 1976, the U.S. Sugar Association (SA), a globally networked trade organization representing the cane and beet sugar industry, won the Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) Silver Anvil Award for a crisis communication campaign. Their campaign successfully limited the diffusion of sugar restriction policies to control obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and dental caries, and marked the beginning of the modern-day SA. The sugar industry continues to resist measures to reduce sugar consumption, therefore understanding and addressing industry opposition is crucial to achieving global targets to reduce non-communicable disease.MethodsWe critically analyze common crisis management rhetorical strategies used by SA to defend itself from perceived wrongdoing, and sugar from perceptions of harm using a thematic content analysis based on Hearit’s Corporate Apologia theory. Data sources were internal SA documents related to the 1976 Silver Anvil Award in 1) PRSA records, 2) Great Western Sugar Company records, and 3) William Jefferson Darby Papers.ResultsSA, using prototypical apologia stances (counterattack, differentiation, apology, and corrective action) and rhetorical dissociation strategies (appearance/reality, opinion/knowledge, and act/essence) constructed a persuasive narrative to successfully defend sugar from a product safety crisis, and the sugar industry from a social legitimacy crisis. SA’s overarching narrative was that restricting sugar, which it claimed was a valuable food that makes healthy foods more palatable, would cause harm and that claims to the contrary were made by opportunists, pseudoscientists, food-faddists, lay nutritionists or those who had been misled by them. SA’s apologia does not meet criteria for truthfulness or sincerity.ConclusionCorporate apologia theory provides an accessible way of understanding sugar industry crisis communication strategies. It enables public health actors to recognize and predict industry corporate apologia in response to ongoing product safety and social legitimacy challenges. Industry counterarguments can be examined for truthfulness and sincerity (or the lack thereof), and explained to policymakers considering sugar restriction policies, and to the public, thereby decreasing the effectiveness of illegitimate industry communication efforts to oppose regulation and legislation.

Strategic Communication in MBA Curricula: A Qualitative Study of Student Outcomes

Using qualitative methods, this study demonstrates that the strategic communication curriculum is an important MBA program component. An audit was performed of syllabi used by schools teaching strategic communication as part of the Public Relations Society of America’s MBA/Business School Program. Interviews were then conducted with 20 respondents composing a purposive nonrandom sample of those who completed a course associated with Public Relations Society of America’s MBA/Business School Program. Researchers interpreted data using qualitative research approaches. Findings show that (a) crisis communication is a common topic in MBA-level strategic communication classes, (b) the inclusion of strategic communication curricula in MBA programs promotes new perspectives regarding the role of the public relations professional, (c) completion of MBA courses in strategic communication may advantageously position students for advancement in marketing and management positions, and (d) MBA students value case studies and interpretative analysis of real-world situations as part of strategic communication curricula.

Ethics and the Profession: The Crystallizing of Public Relations Practice from Association to Accreditation, 1936–1964

Scholars consider the development of public relations ethics to be an integral component in professionalizing public relations. If this connection exists, the solidifying of the profession that took place from the interwar to postwar periods should provide not only evidence for this linkage, but also insight into a philosophy of public relations practice and its key ethical considerations. This study establishes the bookend years of 1936, which marked the founding of the first professional public relations association, and 1964, which marked the start of Public Relations Society of America's accreditation for practice, as defining moments in establishing a profession. An analysis of speeches from business leaders, government officials, and communication practitioners shed light on practices and ethics. The uneasiness many current scholars and professionals express toward persuasive strategies was largely absent during the formative years, as truthful advocacy via two-way communication became emblematic of public relations practice.

Ethics Education in Public Relations: Differences Between Stand-Alone Ethics Courses and an Integrated Approach

ABSTRACTResearch has found that ethics are most likely to be integrated throughout the curriculum rather than taught as a stand-alone course in public relations. However, this study identified substantial differences in the types of content taught in the two formats on the basis of survey research with 96 educators. Some of the topics that are less likely to be taught outside of an ethics course included other codes of ethics beyond those of the Public Relations Society of America, classical theories by philosophers, decision-making models, the effect of organizational culture and values, and global perspectives on ethics. In addition, few educators reported that they discuss raising ethical concerns in their courses.

The European right to be forgotten: A challenge to the United States Constitution’s First Amendment and to professional public relations ethics

This paper explains how the European right to be forgotten violates the free flow of information in society, as evidenced by conflicts with the United States Constitution and ethical principles of professional communicators worldwide. As Europe imposes new data protection laws and incorporates the right to be forgotten that promotes censorship through search engine de-linking, United States constitutional law scholars ponder the implications of World Wide Web censorship, while journalists and public relations professionals struggle to understand how accurate transparent communication could occur in an ecosystem that allows for arbitrary information removal and the creation of memory holes. This article explains why the European notion of the right to be forgotten challenges U.S. constitutional law and professional public relations ethics, imperiling the online marketplace of ideas and eroding disclosure of information. The European Data Protection Directive and recent right to be forgotten movements directly conflict with the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and professional communications ethics codes. The First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights indicates the specific rights of citizens to freedom from government intervention into freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Recent actions by Google to honor European requests to remove data upon request collide with First Amendment theoretical concepts and contemporary constitutional law. Both the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) construct ethical principles for members that call for the active promotion of the free flow of information and the ethical disclosure of information. The European Data Protection Directive’s right to be forgotten silences these core professional communication ethics and more significantly imperils the robust information exchange in a global society, ultimately altering the discourse and debate in democratic countries. This paper addresses the status of the right to be forgotten in the United States and indicates how adopting such a provision in the United States would violate First Amendment theories, as evidenced by the Marketplace of Ideas Theory, the Meiklejohnian Theory, and the Absolutist Theory, and would counter traditional public relations ethics codes, conducted in a context of dialogic ethics that calls for adherence to core values advocating for transparency, disclosure, and free flow of information.

Practitioners’ work-life conflict: A PRSA survey

This study examined public relations practitioners’ experiences with work-life conflict and their coping mechanisms. Survey results of a national random sample of members of the Public Relations Society of America (N=565) added another layer to the work-life conflict literature by demonstrating the impact of the larger organizational environment and professional association on practitioners’ conflict experiences. In short, a negative work environment could increase practitioners’ self-reported levels of work-life conflict, yet a strong identification with the public relations profession and with the larger professional community could help mitigate such conflict. More alarmingly, a heightened level of work-life conflict would discourage practitioners’ proactive coping mechanisms. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

An interview with Dr. Paulo Nassar, president of the Brazilian Association of Business Communication (ABERJE)

In October 2014, the Journal of Professional Communication’s senior associate editor, Dr. Terry Flynn, APR, FCPRS, sat down with the Dr. Paulo Nassar, the president of the Brazilian Association of Business Communication (ABERJE), professor of public relations at the University of Sao Paulo, and 2012 recipient of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) ‘Atlas Award for Lifetime Achievement in International Public Relations,’ to discuss his thoughts on the current state of the profession in Brazil and his hopes for its future. Nassar discusses his background as journalist and a teacher. He discusses the importance of the publication of his first book to his professional development. Nassar also discusses how developing links between ABERJE and the academic research and teaching communities was a key factor in establishing its validity and credibility as an organization. He finishes by sharing his thoughts on the key skills for success in the rapidly developing practive of professional communication. ©Journal of Professional Communication, all rights reserved.

Defining public relations roles in the U.S.A. using cluster analysis

This exploratory study attempted to discover key public relations (PR) practitioner roles through a survey design using factor-cluster analysis. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) partnered with the researchers by inviting PRSA members to complete a survey in which 256 members participated. Although different items were used, the results of this study were similar to the findings of a study conducted on European PR practitioners by Beurer-Zullig, Fieseler, and Meckel (2009) thus suggesting concurrent validity. Five PR roles were found incorporating personal characteristics, modes of communication, management and technical functions, perceived level of respondent strategic planning process involvement, and attitudes about communication goals and PR measurement (including perceived competency). The roles were labeled negotiator, policy advisor, brand officer, internal communicator, and press agent. The negotiator and policy advisor roles, which were management positions, viewed measurement research as important in the practice of PR.

Tuning in to the rhythm: The role of coping in strategic management of work-life conflicts in the public relations profession

How public relations practitioners cope with work-life conflict was studied through a national survey of a random sample of PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) members. These active practitioners reported strong preferences in using more proactive conflict coping strategies, such as rational action and positive thinking. Women and those with a graduate degree tend to report more coping behaviors than others. Three types of stressors are identified as sources of work-life conflict: behavior-driven, work-driven, and life-driven.According to our findings, while behavior-driven work-life stressors are associated with proactive coping strategies such as rational action and positive thinking, work-driven stressors tended to trigger more avoidance. Non-work driven stressors seem to predict more passive coping tendencies, such as denial and avoidance.Organizational factors are found to be important in understanding how practitioners cope with work-life conflict. As organizational demands increased to separate life from work, more instructions seemed necessary for employees to better cope with work-life conflicts. Positive thinking, as a type of cognitive coping, tends to increase when there is more immediate supervisor support and to decrease when an organization's work-life culture is skewed toward promoting work as the sole priority.

Deliver us from definitions: A fresh way of looking at public relations

Public relations (PR) is caught up in a seemingly endless quest to define its identity through locating the essence of its practice. This article not only questions the value of the quest but also offers an alternative ‘apophatic’ path – one based on what may not be said about the profession. This way of building understanding through negation is found in various religious traditions and also in the works of some modern philosophers and poets. Rather than adding to the multiple efforts to define PR’s essence – most recently by the Public Relations Society of America – an apophatic approach could help clear the profession’s field of vision by removing some accumulated definitional debris. In this way, it could serve as an alternative strategy to assist those both inside and outside the profession to better describe what PR does.

In search of message design best practices: The Silver Anvil Award winners archive

We investigated specific award-winning public relations efforts to derive best practices that bridge industry practices with academic research and pedagogy. The data for this project were the winning entries for the annual Public Relations Society of America's (PRSA) Silver Anvil Award, which is considered the top award recognizing excellence in public relations. We found, however, that the archive of award winners does not provide sufficiently definitive information about what defines any public relations discourse genre or why any genre as used is “excellent.” This archival research provides us with a key rationale for employing rhetorical, narrative, and linguistic theories prospectively to guide public relations message design and planning, theories which hitherto have been used to judge campaigns post hoc or retrospectively.

Identifying the best practices of media catching: A national survey of media relations practitioners

Web-based services, like Help-A-Reporter-Out (HARO), that allow journalists to send content requests to a multitude of public relations agents are becoming more popular among media relations practitioners. The purpose of this study is to examine how practitioners are using HARO and to measure success rates of media placements against the proposed best practices of “media catching”. An online survey (n=110) was conducted of members of Public Relations Society of America who identified themselves as working in media relations. Analysis revealed five best practices that had a positive significant correlation to journalist response rates and placement success rates. The results also indicated what media outlets practitioners preferred to reply to using the HARO service. As more practitioners are integrating media catching services in their daily routine, it is important to ensure they are employing best practices in order to develop and maintain positive working relationships with journalists.

Gauging an Integrated Model of Public Relations Value Assessment (PRVA): Scale Development and Cross-Cultural Studies

This article aims to develop an integrated, 2-level, cross-cultural scale for measuring multidimensional public relations value (called PRVA—Public Relations Value Assessment). Three data sets explore the views of a total of 524 public relations professionals from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) and a number of Hong Kong corporations and PR associations, which were incorporated to empirically test the proposed framework. The results show that PRVA, which includes measures of media publicity, organization–public relationship (OPR), organizational reputation, cost reduction, and revenue generation, demonstrated satisfactory construct reliability, structural validity, and cross-cultural applicability. The conceptual Two-level Model of Public Relations Value is also empirically supported across three independent samples. Theoretical, practical and cultural implications derived from the findings for research on public relations value and effects are elaborated.